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Excellence

How quality is the work you do when somebody is watching? Compare that to when nobody is watching? How about the work that you do that perhaps nobody will see? Does that quality stay high or plummet? Reading about Steve Jobs I came across a belief that imprinted him early on as a child. It’s a powerful belief that drove excellence into everything that he did at Apple. It is evident on every Apple product and on the company itself.

In the book Steve Jobs, Isaacson (author) talks about how early on in Steve’s life his father taught him that crafting the backs of fences and cabinets were important even though they were not seen. “He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.” Even though those parts were not seen that did not mean that they were not important. Look at Apple products and you will see this.

It is a devotion to excellence. Each and every product is designed so precisely. There are a multitude of tiny details we would never even think about; the rounding of the corners, the color choice, or the typography. However it is those tiny details that become the difference that makes all the difference. It is those tiny details that done over and over again make something great. It makes something remarkable.

Stephen Covey talked about the private victory always precedes the public victory. Our private victories are what eventually build up to our public ones. Our devotion to excellence is what creates something extraordinary. It is those tiny details of what we create. It is the tiny disciplines that we undertake every day. It’s those details and disciplines that can completely change a direction of a life, a business, or a career.

What have you been creating? Is it something that you are proud to present or has it been something sub-par that you just got through? Sure we don’t want to become perfectionists but we know deep within ourselves if we do things with excellence or not.

“Everything is a cause set in motion. Every result begins creating a direction. Every direction leads to an ultimate destination” – Tony Robbins